this will make sense in a minute hopefully? i wanted to talk a bit about “slut shaming” and what has been framed as the “sexual double standard” since long before any of us was born — i think i first heard of it in the context of first-wave feminists who noticed that prostituted women were being singled out for oppressive state controls like mandatory screenings for venereal disease while male johns werent. while i think the “double standard” concept was initially useful because it drew attention to a misogynistic phenomenon, so that we could isolate, identify and examine something that was really happening in real life, the concept itself is thinly (or not at all)-disguised equality-rhetoric isnt it? it means that, assuming we are all the same, or “all things being equal” there should be one standard that applies universally.

the problem with identifying sex-based “double standards” however is that there are actual, meaningful sex-based differences between women and men — the “assuming we are all the same” part poses a problem for radical feminists, who understand that men do not equal women and women do not equal men. for us, once we have identified the relevant issues as being reproductively-based, or having literally to do with “sex” (either biological sex or sexual intercourse, which implicates biological sex-based difference) an analysis based on the sexual double standard is a nonstarter. radical feminists can and must do better, and our analyses do in fact shed meaningful light on issues affecting women as a sexual class, including social patriarchal structures and mechanisms which are designed by men to benefit themselves and support male power at womens expense.

in the case of the so-called sexual double standard of oppressive state controls being placed on prostituted women but not on male johns, the problem is not that its a double standard (which is an unhelpful liberal, rather than a feminist, concept), but that its actually a patriarchal reversal — policy and practice has assumed that prostituted women were largely infecting men, when the truth is that its the male johns who are infecting prostituted women, and not so much the other way around.

furthermore, a truth-based policy and practice would also have to acknowledge that, as a general matter, male johns are becoming infected themselves primarily through engaging in penetrative sex with other men (and intravenous drug use) — again, due to biological differences between women and men which make it relatively difficult for women to infect men with disease, as a general matter, men are not becoming infected by women, prostituted or not. men are also known to engage in risky sexual and other behavior more than women are, which complicates the matter — what that “social” difference does not do, however, is make women more likely to infect men with sexually transmitted disease. ruminate about “nature versus nurture” on that difference all you like, but for our purposes its largely irrelevant.

to clarify, whats “unfair” about the historical treatment of prostituted women is not that they are treated differently than men — the “double standard.” no. in reality, these policies and practices are “unfair” because they are objectively damaging to women and are misogynistic and patriarchal, designed to benefit men at womens expense (and in the case of the reversal, its an inversion of reality, to boot).

savvy? now, for any of you who are still awake, i will attempt to draw a parallel between slut-shaming and the chest-burster scene from alien.

regarding “slut-shaming”. slut-shaming, apparently, refers to the “sexual double standard” whereby women who engage in (primarily) intercourse with men are cast in a negative light, while males who engage in (primarily) intercourse with women arent. yes? so dismissing the equality-framework of the double-standard as inadequate on its face (we are talking about intercourse, where there are in fact meaningful sex-based differences between women and men) we must go deeper. what is really going on here, when women who fuck men “consensually” are regarded as “more promiscuous, less intelligent, less mentally healthy, less competent, and more risky” than are the men they are fucking?

first, its obvious that this is a male-centric viewpoint — everything is, and will continue to be, unless and until women develop our own female-centric discourse, and create language and concepts and definitions that center female reality, and that address and communicate what *we* mean when we say what we say. interestingly, when viewing the world through mens eyes, the reasoning behind “slut-shaming” instantly snaps into focus doesnt it? to wit, considering that men know that intercourse is harmful to women, including the risks of disease and pregnancy; and understanding that female-specific reproductive harm is central and critical to male political and interpersonal power; and considering that intercourse-as-sex is therefore the very foundation of patriarchy itself — men tend to view women who “have sex” in a negative light because no sane, healthy, competent etc. person would voluntarily engage in it, considering the risks. get it?

so sane person. no human person. no man.

you see, there is not a man in the entire world, if the risks of intercourse applied to men, who would ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER choose to engage in it for pleasures sake. never, ever, ever, ever, ever would a man voluntarily place himself in harms way like that, and that includes the most submissive, masochistic and self-hating man. NO man would EVER do this. so if the question is, “why do men treat women who voluntarily engage in intercourse as if those women are retarded, damaged, or crazy?” the answer, im sorry to say, is “because thats what they think you are.”

historical note: nymphomania. this is not abstract theorizing mkay. men have long thought that women who desired intercourse with men were crazy, as in mentally ill. because no sane person would voluntarily engage in it, considering the risks. note that historically and today, this diagnosis applies only to women, although that history (and, uh, present) has been obscured of late with bullshit equality rhetoric: wiki now redirects to “hypersexuality” despite the female-specific context and connotations of nymphomania.

its not difficult to see how and in what context “slut shaming” makes perfect sense, actually. note that *i* am not saying that women who voluntarily engage in intercourse are retarded, insane, or particularly damaged. i know better, and that its more akin to making a deal with the devil, where men are the devil.

interestingly, and very much related, this is what men appear to think of pregnancy: (remakes of) the chestbursting-alien scene from alien! i couldnt find the real one, but these will do.

which is even more reason for men to think women are LITERALLY RETARDED, literally insane, to voluntarily place themselves at risk by having intercourse with men. it also demonstrates what they think of people who are insane, when sane = man = human. as in, no sane person. no human person. no man. listening to men tell it, they seem to think pregnancy and aliens are very much related.

and while *i* accept that some women might desire pregnancy under some conditions, men seem to think that NO sane person would EVER voluntarily submit to it under ANY conditions, although they are assuming the continuation of patriarchy including patriarchal medicine and how it is deliberately used to support male power and to harm and damage pregnant, birthing and mothering women. of course they are.

tl;dr. slut shaming: its what men really think of women who voluntarily have sex with men, because men know that intercourse is damaging to women. also, the sexual “double standard” cannot be applied to radical analyses of policies and practices implicating “sex” and sex-based difference. in the context of “slut shaming”, a double-standard analysis is unhelpful liberal equality-rhetoric, nothing more.

when you talk, i basically tell you to shut up, or wish you would. youre young and beautiful now, but you wont always be. fortunately for me, you cannot move through the world anonymously even if you wanted to, and thinking about other men threatening your safety gives me a boner.

i want you to consent to PIV with me, when PIV is a hateful act which others you and pathologizes your female reproductive biology. to help me fulfill my agenda, i am trying to confuse you with hateful reversals. is it working? also, its probably better (for me) if you dont think about what will happen if you say no.

oh how i wish this would just happen already! the internets have blown up with the PIV-critical talk — and this makes me so happy i cant even. of course, i doubt this will be the final throes of the PIV-as-sex paradigm — the one that has left literally billions of damaged, dead and dying female bodies in its wake across time and place — which makes me so sad i cant even. we will have to live like this for a bit i think, but how long is a “bit” really? things change on a dime (in some cases). that one piece of the puzzle finally clicks into place and the picture becomes clear — in some cases.

and did i mention men lie? they make shit up, they create realities that arent real. this makes our job harder, but moving through mental molasses is still movement.

an illustration. what does this image conjure for any of us when we see it:

sea monsters arent real. so what is this?

sea monsters arent real mkay. so what are these images a placeholder for? whats really going on, and what are men lying about exactly when they create these elaborate scenarios and images that attempt to explain real phenomena but with the added “twist” of building males up and increasing male power, and stumping for men and a pro-male agenda, whatever that means at the time?

in the case of the mythology of the sea monster…an entire false history complete with evocative imagery and compulsory emotionality/sentimentality seems to have been written by men to explain away entire ships — hundreds of them — being lost at sea, possibly due either to bad seamanship or to rogue waves.

according to the history channel, historically, when not-incompetent seafaring men reported seeing or being damaged by one of these “monster waves” — assuming they survived at all — the other men laughed at them, and called them drunks or worse. so the men just started making shit up. because they could, you see. men create reality; the rest of us just live in it.

in the case of the seamonster, men created an incredibly rich, vivid and yet as it turns out completely false reality narrative that *kind of* explained what had happened, but which made them look better than the actual, real truth, and deflected the blame away from them onto something — anything! — else. only when other men found “scientific evidence” of rogue waves did anyone start believing they were real, and (happily!) this truth was exculpatory of men and mens incompetence, and knowing that, men started widely reporting the actual real truth about rogue waves and the part they play in anyones reality.

i find it particularly striking that rogue waves are known to take out the masts of ships — knowing how frequently we see images of seamonsters grabbing onto the masts of ships.

and speaking of rich, vivid and yet completely false narratives, what of this:

this isnt real either. so what does this image stand for?

feel the emotion and history there? so do i. unfortunately though, just like in the case of the seamonsters, this “history” — of PIV and what it is and what it means — is not real. we are left to deal with the fact that this imagery and this history feels real, and is physically and emotionally evocative — of something made-up, that never happened. talk about a mindfuck. does it help to understand that men do this all the time? that they invent imagery and entire histories of things that feel or seem real — and that deliberately somewhat-correspond to actual events — but which never actually happened in real life? because they do.

like this:

men lie.

feel that? feel the witchy history there, the evocative narrative, the sounds, the smells, the emotions and all of it? thats intentional. but its not real. srsly, how do they do that — how is emotion and history manufactured so easily and so effectively? i cant say i fully understand the mechanism, but look — “witches” were mainly women — regular women. witches cauldrons were for cooking, a cauldron is just a big pot, get it? and all women had one in their homes. brooms were for sweeping, (not for flying ffs) and all or almost all women had one in the house. just like we do today. get it?

mens ability to rewrite this and to have their lying-ass version of history just last and last is terrifying, it really is. think of these examples as mansplanations, perhaps — and then realize how malicious and malevolent mansplanations really are. men lie. and men kill women on purpose, and lie about it, including inventing evocative histories bursting with sentimentality and emotion which deflect our intellect and imagination to where men want them, instead of on the real actual truth. and this of course includes the truth about PIV and what it means for female-bodied people across time and place.

in the case of the seamonsters, the actual, real truth was exculpatory of men, so men were more than happy to report the truth when they finally knew it. but this is *not* the case with accused witches and what men did to them because they wanted to and because they could — that history has been trivialized, and all but completely erased. and it is not the case with PIV either. the truth will never be reported, by them. the picture will never finally come into focus, relying on that one critical piece of information, supplied by them. we have to do this ourselves, or it will never be done. and once the truth is out, we will probably have to work very hard to preserve it.

like the dishwasher dilemma, which is the source of endless and unresolvable conflict in the het partnership, the “sex” fight is one that can happen every day, all day without ever being resolved. because its a clash of 2 realities, where women are saying that from their perspective, things look, sound, feel, taste and smell like shit, they dont like it, and they want it to change; and men disagree that anything should ever change, when the current arrangement is so obviously beneficial to men and supports male power. thats what the sex fight is about: women dont like living in mens reality, where men make the rules to benefit themselves, at womens expense. and men do like it, and they never, ever want it to change, and they will never do anything to change or disturb the current order, and they will do everything in their power to support it and perpetuate it forever.

and the sex-fight comes in 2 flavors, doesnt it? we are all familiar with the one where women are sick and fucking tired of being pronged by men, where they have had enough of submitting to unwanted intercourse that is boring, painful, degrading, risky, dangerous, or terrifying. otherwise known as the “frigid woman problem“. you know, from mens perspective. where NOT engaging in painful, terrifying or degrading intercourse is known as abstinence, because intercourse, no matter how terrible it is, is what sex is, and going without it is the same thing as abstinence. according to language.

but theres also the problem of women wanting PIV too much, or more than their partners do. theres a very clinical and very nasty-sounding name for women who actually desire all that PIV thats being done to them, and would be done to them anyway, whether they liked or wanted it or not: nymphomaniacs. because men know that theres something very wrong with women who actually want intercourse. you know, considering how dangerous it is for women, and how much it is clearly against womens best interests. men know this, and they are naming their reality constantly: women would have to be literally insane to want PIV. of course, since no women are free to opt-out of PIV completely, this also implies, doesnt it, that engaging in unwanted intercourse (as opposed to intercourse thats wanted) is actually the sane thing to do, and is what passes as sanity for women. rape and rapeability as sanity, and evidence of good mental health, for women. omg. but i digress.

my point is that women wanting more PIV than their partners — and the frigid woman problem — are really manifestations of the same thing. radical feminists are always bombarded with stomach-turning porntastic proclamations by both women and men, whenever we criticize PIV, where despite what we know about womens shared experience with PIV and how devastating it has proven to be to girls and women around the world, there are apparently some women who like it. looooove it, even. and i am sick of hearing about it, but its not because i dont understand it, and its not because it challenges my position and i dont like being challenged. its because i dont like being bombarded by fucking porn, for one thing. and its also because it doesnt challenge anything at all, and its actually completely consistent with a radfem analysis of dueling realities, and PIV. and the stupid — combined with the porn — just really fucking burns, yannow? it really does.

so lets put this one to bed. some women want lots and lots of PIV because if they are going to engage in it at all, and take on the extreme risk of engaging in PIV at all, it makes perfect, nauseating sense that they would also want to do it a lot.

because once you have engaged in intercourse one time, there is no way of knowing for sure that you havent become impregnated against your will: you wont know that until you get your next period. and this is terrifying. youve jumped off a bridge, and theres no going back. so doing it 10 more times really doesnt make anything better, but it doesnt really make it worse, either. not really. the first time is the worst, because it introduces terror into the equation for the first time. and going from no-terror to some terror is more of a change, than going from one degree of terror to another. or at least, going from none to some is objectively measurable, where going from one degree of terror to another is subjective at best, and dependant on many variables, like where you are in your cycle, birth-control failures, and the like.

this is what sexual “empowerment” looks like for women, under the PIV-as-sex paradigm. taking an area of subjectivity and manipulating it the best they can, so that their interests are at least somewhat represented. otherwise, they wouldnt be. at all.

*i* was this woman once, and i was rendered absolutely mute when it came to articulating this, because there are no words for it. i fought with nigel constantly about our “sex life” which consisted of infrequent PIV, just frequent enough to leave me wondering every (or every-other) month whether i was pregnant, and thats it. the absolute most risk with the absolute least payout (for me). it became just another repetitive bicker-fest and was never resolved, partly because in order to articulate this one, so that it can be addressed, you first need to understand the concept of reproductive harm, and that concept does not exist under patriarchy. it is literally unutterable. not that most men would be interested in addressing this one properly, even if most women could articulate it. but that goes without saying, and demonstrates why this is actually a HUGE problem, and probably cannot be remedied. because men dont want it remedied. no, they like it the way it is. now why might that be?

so anyway, assuming you have engaged in PIV that critical first time, you have already jumped off the bridge, and the “sexually empowered” woman wants to enjoy the fall, as much as she can. note that the entire process *more or less* resets itself after you start your period: you start back at zero, with 100% confidence that you arent pregnant. but even thats not really true, now is it? in reality, youre never really sure. but lets pretend we dont know that.

i believe this can be expressed in a simple graphic. the first graph represents female confidence, and how that is diminished after the first fuck. the second graph shows how, for the woman who likes PIV, both terror and pleasure are introduced into the equation at the same time — the time of the first fuck. a womans net-pleasure can be manipulated in subsequent encounters (but not really in the first):

watch that first step -- its a doozy!

(click on image for full-size)

well, maybe its not *simple* but it is a graphic. after the first fuck, the terror relating to risk of unwanted pregnancy appears. and female net-pleasure can be manipulated after that first fuck, by increasing pleasure, or decreasing terror, based on many variables. what you can never do though, is remove the terror once its there. that stays, no matter what. you can play with the levers a bit, thats all. thats where women find their pleasure from PIV (the ones who get any from it, and many dont). and that is just so completely fucked up, it makes me furious.

now, if you wanted to be really conspiratorial about it, you might think about whether the black areas, while indicating female terror, might *also* indicate male pleasure. consider that they might be the same thing. if they were, it would explain, wouldnt it, why men are so fond of fucking virgins, and having one-night stands. because in both graphs, the woman’s terror arises after the first fuck, but doesnt really increase that much thereafter, or not in any way thats completely predictable, and in control of the man. and whats in it for men, if they cant increase female terror/male pleasure any more than it already is, and control women in predictable ways?

anyway, i get that some women loooove PIV, and want a lot of it. it doesnt make what radical feminists say about PIV wrong, or even challenge it at all. not by a long shot.

i recently had a woman in my life ask me for advice. she said that even though she told her husband she no longer wishes to have PIV, that he keeps bothering her about it, and even though her main reason for removing PIV from the table is menopause-related, in that PIV now causes her extreme pain and recurrent infections, he is getting increasingly and explicitly coercive. she specifically asked for a list of arguments she might be able to use when he comes after her again, and she plans to stockpile them, essentially, like ammo. if that doesnt give just the perfect mental picture, then i dont know what does.

so, heres what i said. keeping in mind that i know some of the details of her situation, and that this is a custom-tailored list, heres what i came up with:

you could tell him that you arent a blowup doll and suggest that he get one. or tell him you give him permission to get a girlfriend, and that you are sure there are plenty of young women that would love to have intercourse with him. NOT. or that no PIV is NOT a grounds for divorce in your state, so whats his point? he is not asserting a real right here, just an imagined one. [link to divorce law site]

as for his assertion that its your “right” as a woman to enthusiastically engage in PIV until you are 90, [HAHA!! HE ACTUALLY SAID THAT TO HER] tell him ok fine, its your RIGHT and you are choosing not to assert your right in this instance. ask him if “women” (women generally, including you) also have the right to refuse PIV, whether they are old or young? if so, why? if not, why not? do his daughters have this right? does his mother?

as for his being unable to get his head around “never having PIV again” tell him you dont control that, only he controls that. all you are saying is that hes never going to have PIV with YOU again, and thats bc you arent ever going to have PIV again with anyone and that part of your life is over, and you are ok with that.

insist that YOU have the right to anally penetrate him with a dildo of whatever size YOU choose, and you dont care if it hurts him bc its your (MADE UP) right to do so and you are asserting it. or, tell him that its your right to be married to a rich man and you are asserting that right, so he better start looking for a second job right away. tell him you are a gold digger and you are tired of GOING WITHOUT.

tell him that intercourse is a scam that only very young women buy into because they dont know any better, and you arent young anymore and neither is your vagina. tell him that yes, there are documented physical changes that occur with menopause.

that article says that the PIV-related symptoms can be minor or severe. for minor symptoms, IF A WOMAN WANTS TO (which you dont) she can use a lube. but if they are severe, the only treatment is hormone replacement therapy that has side effects and potential complications, up to and including death. tell him that yours is severe, and you arent willing to take the risk OF DEATH in order to engage in PIV with him. if he is willing to die from it, suggest that he take his blowup doll onto the freeway and take his chances.

then after thinking about it for another hour, i sent this one, because her partner prides himself in being a terrific family man who loves his children more than anything in the entire world, allegedly including his daughters:

next time he brings this up, stop the conversation immediately, and tell him to call his daughters RIGHT NOW and tell them that they do not have the right to refuse intercourse with men. tell him to call his daughters RIGHT NOW and tell them that if a man does something to them that hurts, that they dont have the right to stop him, and tell them that if a man hurts them that they just need to let him keep hurting them. tell them they will probably get used to it over time. [THATS WHAT HE SAID TO HER, THAT THE REASON IT ‘HURTS’ HER IS BC THEY DONT DO IT ENOUGH, THEREFORE TO ALLEVIATE THE PAIN THEY SHOULD DO IT MORE].

if he says that its different bc you are married, then tell him that you are going to call his daughters and tell them that they should never get married and tell them why. then, tell him that the “right” to intercourse wasnt in your marriage vows. just like you having the “right” to be married to a millionaire wasnt in your vows, and perhaps you shouldve both considered that before you got married.

some of these are nuclear, all are eminently reasonable. thing is that i know none of them are going to work, if by “work” you mean they are actually going to convince a man, and get him to really, really feel it, that he doesnt deserve unfettered sexual access to a woman, and that its not, in fact, his god-given right as a man to have PIV on demand. dood actually told her that HE DESERVES BETTER. when the truth of the matter is that if he got what he deserved, he would have less than nothing, because thats what he deserves. and he sure as hell doesnt deserve her, and everything shes done for him over the years, and all the ways his life is better for being with her, because she takes excellent care of him and excellent care of everything.

if only men got what they deserved. if only. the world as we know it would be unrecognizable. and facing that beautiful new world, i think i’d turn cartwheels down the street until my hands bled, and then i’d wash the gravel out, and then….well, i think i would take a pillow and a blanket to the beach and sleep there for a week and think about what i would do with my life, because my work would be done. and i would be so happy about that. oh. my. god. the happy.